Wendy Nichol

This is Wendy Nichol's third season designing apparel, and by now, she's made a couple things clear. First, Nichol is dedicated to making collections that are capsule-size. Second, she's committed to a few key silhouettes, such as a boyish blazer and an apron-style dress. Both the smallness and the repetitiveness of her collections are in service to her borderline obsessive-compulsive need to refine her core pieces and make them ever more luxurious. The seemingly simple pieces here were freakishly luxe—to wit, an oat-toned sheer silk dress, detailed with intricate seaming and shoulder ruching, not to mention the fluid pleats that seemed to have been magicked into the garment's construction. A similar black dress with balloon sleeves and a full skirt required so much material, it made your head spin. Nichol's clothes earn their cost.

Top of mind for Nichol this season was to hone her line's point of view. On the one hand, she's given an even freer hand to her romantic streak, incorporating tons of wispy silk and lace and introducing a few lingerie items, including a bra and panty set. On the other hand, lest all her sheers make you think Nichol impractical, she put the focus on short suiting and lightweight outerwear. An excellent, aggressively simplified A-line military coat came at functionality from one direction; a new range of fitted, mercerized cotton layering pieces came at it from another.

One additional note: Nichol occasionally bothers to make a superb hat. This season, she collaborated with Trivial on a few remarkable styles, built off vintage Japanese hat blocks and then manipulated and exaggerated. They'll be huge for editorial, though you'd have to be daring to try some of these mega-chapeaux on the street.